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My Final Year Project

PURGATORY (2024)

Purgatory is a 2D animated comedy short done by me and my group mate, Zechariah Teo. I first pitched it as a cartoon episode for children's TV, but later got too cheeky for children's TV when it was finally completed.

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It is about an unenthusiastic angel who has to clean up his mess after a workplace incident, and a dog who tries to help him. They're both pretty bad at their jobs.

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I was the director, writer & storyboard artist, and compositor for the project. Purgatory was my concept, and I also did the character designs for the film.

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You can watch Purgatory (2024) here.

Behind the Scenes

This is one of the earlier storyboards I did for the film. So many iterations of the storyboards went into this just so we could hit the jokes and timing just right. It was even further fine-tuned during post production. 

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I learnt a valuable tip that if a joke doesn't feel right, don't force it, it's got to go!

Muriel (the angel), Dog (the dog), and my ideation process.

Purgatory was written during my Professor's (the wonderful Andi Sparks) writing class. It was born out of my own struggles of feeling stuck in a washing machine of frustration.

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Pitched as a pilot for a TV series, Purgatory would go on to show Muriel (the angel) falling over and over again down into Purgatory, into different misadventures caused by his own carelessness and mistakes.

 

As I built a purgatory of my own making with my own mistakes in real life, so does Muriel in Purgatory. Except that he has Dog (the dog) to help him out.

Muriel doesn't really like his job, but he was very much created by God to do it.

 

Meanwhile, Dog, who is seated at the right hand of God, very much loves his job.

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They're both pretty bad at what they do, it is very much a miracle that they always make it out alright.

The Souls (final design by Zechariah Teo) are pretty much the victims of Muriel's mistakes (The Bad Souls are thrown down by him, the Bad Souls get their party destroyed by him).

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At first, the Bad Souls were actually supposed to be pretty bad. But I realised, being in Purgatory and not Hell, they'd actually be somewhere inbetween Good and Bad, which in my mind is Cheeky.

Purgatory is very much inspired by cartoons I grew up with such as Chowder, Looney Tunes, and Phineas & Ferb. The art style also took great reference from Calvin & Hobbes!

To end this off, a frequently asked question we got during our showcase was: why is God Australian?

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Well, our supervisor, Dr Andi Sparks is Australian. It was only appropriate :)

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